Push to nix up to $50G in U. loans

Sen. Chuck Schumer pressed President Biden on Friday to use executive action to wipe out up to $50,000 in federal student loan debt per borrower, centering veterans and service members in his latest push.

Flanked by a group of local veterans at Hunter College on the Upper East Side, the Senate majority leader said that too many college graduates — including combat veterans who risked their lives overseas — are shackled with crushing debt that plays an outsized role in their life decisions.

“That debt is just up to people’s necks,” Schumer (D-N.Y.) said. “So we are here to ask the president, with a flick of a pen, to eliminate $50,000 of student debt for every student who has it.”

Before Biden was elected, Schumer and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) outlined a plan for executive action to cancel gobs of student debt, garnering backing from a small army of Democratic lawmakers.

Biden has moved cautiously on the issue, frustrating progressives. He called for scrapping $10,000 per person on the campaign trail and has asked the Education Department to review whether it’s legal for him to bypass Congress on the issue.

In December, Schumer and Warren jointly published an oped saying that the White House has the power to forgive $50,000 per borrower in federal student loans.

“Critics have fretted that loan forgiveness would benefit the well-off more than the working poor, and Republican lawmakers have hardly warmed to the idea.

But for veterans and other graduates squeezed by monthly debt payments amid the pandemic, Schumer promised, the plan would reduce an onerous burden.